Beef Bone Broth

A friend of ours suddenly fell ill a few years ago. She was living abroad in Sydney, working as a banking corporate, going socially hard and fitness hard (typical Sydney lifestyle) until one morning, she simply couldn't get out of bed. It wasn't chronic fatigue. It was something else, something worse. Her entire system had crashed and showed no signs of recovery. She had to leave her job, leave Sydney, return home and be nursed by her parents indefinitely in the hope that one day, she'd be able to get out of bed. It took years.

So life-changing was this experience, that she since pursued functional nutrition and is now an international speaker on the subject. She swears by beef bone broth and a lot of my health-conscious friends drink it on the reg. I recently had a baby and as we approached the introduction of solids at six months, I was worried it would be an uphill battle as it was with my son. I tried Zoe on some homemade chicken stock with rice cereal and she absolutely necked it. I couldn't believe it. So as she was feeding on this almost every meal, I thought about Shelley's advice and tried out homemade beef bone broth to diversify her meals. Sure enough, Zoe took to it even more and I now oscillate between the two alongside breastmilk. So if you've got a baby who is at the not-just-breastmilk but not-quite-solids stage, this is for you. And if you need beef stock, a way to radically transform 2 minute noodles into a health-fest, or if you want a stripped down beef pho with rice noodles, or just a drink of pure nutrition, then this is for you too. 

I also noticed that I was using a LOT of sandwich plastic bags storing these in the freezer and feeling a pang of guilt every time I'd throw them out so I went and bought silicone freezer trays (2tbsp, 1cup and 2cup) which will last years and work really well.  

Ingredients:

1.8kg beef bones, preferably a mix of marrow bones and bones with a little meat on them.

2 medium unpeeled carrots

1 medium leek, leaves removed and cut into 5cm pieces

1 medium brown onion, peeled and quartered

1 garlic bulb, sliced in half horizontally

2 celery stalks cut in 5cm pieces

2 tablespoons black peppercorns

2 tsp salt

1 tbsp cider vinegar

Bouquet garni: (insert into celery stick and tie with kitchen string)

2 x bay leaves

6 sprigs thyme

12 sprigs continental parsley

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 230C. Place beef bones, leek, onion and garlic in a roasting pan and roast for 20minutes. Toss the contents of the pan and continue to roast until deeply browned, about 20minutes more.

2. Fill a large stockpot with 14 cups of water. Add bouquet garni, celery, peppercorns, salt and vinegar. Scrape the roasted bones and vegetables into the pot. Add more water if necessary to cover the bones and vegetables.

3. Cover the pot and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to a very low simmer and cook with lid slightly ajar, skimming foam and excess fat occassionally, for 12 hours. 

4. Remove the pot from the heat and strain through fine mesh sieve into very large saucepan with lid. Discard all non-liquid ingredients. Cool slightly and place into refrigerator overnight.

5. Discard fat from surface of stock and pour into freezer containers. If you wait more than a day to do this, the liquid will congeal and be harder to work with. Stock will keep for 6 months in the freezer.